


Squash Match

by kenjideath



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Body Image, Bullying, Cats, Daddy Issues, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5433191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenjideath/pseuds/kenjideath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short WWE fics in response to prompts on Tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean brings home a kitten

As soon as Dean’s sleeve meows, Roman knows he’s going to have to be the mean boyfriend. He hates being the mean boyfriend.

“She jumped out of a dumpster and tried to rip my nose off,” Dean explains, stroking the blue-grey fur on her head and staying clear of the tattered stub of her left ear. He did, indeed, have angry red lines on his nose. “I’m going to call her Mick.”

Seth had been practically cooing ever since Dean produced the dangerously cute furball. “You can’t call a girl Mick,” he said. “A pretty girl like this needs a pretty name, doesn’t she?” Seth’s voice dropped into baby talk. “Doesn’t she? Who’s a pretty girl?” Seth planted a kiss right on the cats face and didn’t bat an eyelash when Dean laughed his ass off at him.

Roman steeled himself. “I’ll look up where we can find a no-kill shelter in the area,” he said.

Dean didn’t even have the decency to look betrayed. “Mick’s not going to a shelter,” he said. Mick licked one of Dean’s fingers, the dirty, conniving….

“We’re on the road all the time and cats hate to travel,” Roman said. “It would be kinder to make sure that it has a good home.”

“She has a good home,” Seth said. Where was the Architect when Roman needed a voice of reason on his side?

Apparently, picking up the kitten and depositing it in Dean’s hood, where it nuzzled against Dean’s head and buzzed.

Dean reached back and offered the car his fingers to swipe at. “Welcome home, Mick,” he said. His voice was soft, and so were his eyes.

Roman gave up. If Seth wasn’t going to be the mean boyfriend, then they were just going to have to do without. “I’ll call the nearest vet,” he said, resigned to his fate.

His boys didn’t even care. “What about Mickie Knuckles?” Seth suggested. “That’s _like_  Mick.”

“Nope,” Dean said, and that was the last thing Roman heard until Mick peed on both of them and Roman had to get off the phone and throw them in the shower.


	2. Kevin/Seth - "Don't listen to them. Don't you EVER listen to them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference: http://www.kayfabenews.com/7-sexy-pictures-kevin-owens-will-make-drool/

“Seven Super-Sexy Pictures of Kevin Owens That Will Make You Drool!” read the latest insult from the Internet Wrestling Community. It was literally just seven random pictures of Kevin between sentences about how hot he is. It couldn’t be more immature and pathetic if it ended with “YOU SEE IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE YOU’RE FAT AND UGLY.”

Kevin was about to click out of the window when he felt Seth lean against his back and plant a hand on top of Kevin’s so that he cold scroll through the article.

“That’s so dumb,” Seth said. Kevin rolled his eyes. If Seth was going to give him a pep talk about true beauty being on the inside or whatever, Kevin would powerbomb him into the side of the bed, even if it meant he’d be sleeping along for the foreseeable future.

“They could at least have tried to find bad pictures of you,” Seth continued. He scrolled further down the page. “They even have the one of you with the koala!”

Kevin twisted himself around in the computer chair to squint at his boyfriend. Then he remembered that this was Seth Rollins and he really shouldn’t be surprised.

“What?” Seth asked. “Okay, maybe the koala picture isn’t exactly sexy, but you look damn good.”

“Nah,” Kevin drawled, “I just forgot that, as the World Heavyweight Champion of Daddy Issues, you have a skewed idea of attractiveness.”

Seth squawked, offended. “I do not!”

“Seriously? Let’s go through the guys you think are fuckable.” Kevin started to count off on his fingers. “Triple H.”

Seth scoffed. “He’s the King of Kings, everyone wants to fuck Triple H.”

“Roman.”

“That – whatever, Roman doesn’t look like a dad.”

“Present day Marek Brave, but not twink Marek Brave.”

Seth looked shifty. “We were too close when we were younger,” he said, unconvincingly. “It would have been weird.”

“Me,” Kevin finished. “Just own up to it, sweetheart: if I ever took you on a fishing trip, you’d probably jizz your pants.”

Seth spun Kevin around in his chair. He had a weirdly calm expression, which was disappointing; pissing Seth off was hilarious and Kevin had thought he was on a pretty good roll.

“I know what this is about,” Seth said. He reached forward and cradled Kevin’s face in his palms. “It’s okay, honey. Don’t listen to them. Don’t EVER listen to them.”

Kevin felt a rising sensation of dread. “What’re you – ”

“You’ll always be beautiful to me,” Seth said, opening his eyes too wide to try to fake a surge of emotion, “because I can see your beautiful heart.”

Kevin narrowed his eyes. “Keep this up, and I won’t throw the old pigskin around with you later.”

Seth beamed. “You’re full-figured. Those internet losers are just jealous of you!”

“I should teach you how to shave so you can do something about that awful beard.”

“I like having a little extra to hold at night, anyway.”

That was the last straw. “Did you just quote Meghan Trainor at me,” Kevin demanded.

Seth shrugged. “You recognized it,” he said.

That settled it. Kevin hoisted Seth up and carried him a few feet to throw him onto the bed. “If you’re going to sass me like that, I’m taking away your car privileges for a month,” he said. Then he shoved his tongue into Seth’s mouth so that he couldn’t respond.

—

Later, when they were catching their breath, snuggled together in the sweaty sheets, Seth said, “Dean.”

Kevin would like to be able to say that it was the first time Seth had brought Ambrose up in their bed, but unfortunately, he lived in the real world. “What,” Kevin said.

Seth rubbed his face against Kevin’s arm, his beard an oddly pleasant sensation. “I think Dean’s fuckable and he’s not a dad,” Seth said.

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Your soulmate that you share an inexplicable bond with falls outside your type,” he said. “Big whoop. Your daddy issues are cured forever.”

Seth slapped his stomach, but lightly. He turned the motion into a caress, feeling up Kevin’s gut the way Kevin sometimes felt up Seth’s ass or abs. Seth was half asleep, probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. “I don’t have daddy issues,” he mumbled.

Kevin scratched Seth behind the ears. At least he was cute. “Go mow the lawn,” he said. Seth’s sniggers were a comforting tickling sensation as Kevin drifted off to sleep.


	3. Triple H/Seth - "What happened doesn't change anything."

Seth was surprisingly stoic throughout most of the night. Hunter had gotten used to him throwing a fit every time someone looked at him wrong that the change was almost eerie. Seth just let himself be helped to the back, moved the way the trainers told him to move, nodded seriously along with their explanation. When the doctor said those awful words – six to nine months – Hunter felt like he’d been punched in the gut, but Seth had stared at his own hands, clasped in his lap, and thanked the doctor for his time.

When they got back to the room, Seth just limped to the bed and lay down half-curled like a child, his face buried in a pillow held close to his chest. Hunter sat down on the bed next to him, gingerly, unsure if Seth would want to be touched or not.

“I’ll have to vacate the championship,” Seth said. Hunter jumped; it felt like he hadn’t heard Seth’s voice in hours.

“Yes,” Hunter agreed. “We’ll have a tournament. I’ll need to talk to Stephanie about the bracket tomorrow.”

“You’ll have to pick a new champion,” Seth said.

It suddenly made Hunter very uncomfortable that he couldn’t see Seth’s face. He cleared his throat. “What happened doesn’t change anything,” he lied. The Authority was weaker than it had ever been; they needed to replace Seth as soon as possible.

Seth most have known it too, because he laughed, a sad little sound. “I’m no good to you broken,” Seth said, and he wasn’t angry or scared or whining, he wasn’t wearing any of the emotions that Hunter was used to seeing on him. He just sounded tired, tired and defeated.

Hunter had never been good at this kind of situation. It was part of why he had married Stephanie, a woman who was more comforted by the blood of her enemies than soft words. He didn’t know what to do here. Seth had never been so soundly beaten before.

Hunter reached out a hesitant hand and rolled Seth over. Seth let himself be moved. He stared up at Hunter with his dry brown eyes. Hunter tried to find the right words.

“You’ll always be my Plan B,” Hunter said, and that was what finally made Seth start crying.


	4. Kevin/Seth - "You don't have to stay."

“You don’t have to stay,” Seth mumbled into Kevin’s sleeve. “I know you had stuff you wanted to do today.” It would have been more convincing if Seth wasn’t clinging to Kevin like a limpet, his long legs wrapped around one of Kevin’s, effectively trapping him in place.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kevin said. He was scrolling through his twitter feed on his phone, and paused a moment to block someone. “It’s just my first day off in three weeks. What could be better than you slowly crushing me with your body?”

If it was possible, Seth clung even tighter. “You can go do whatever,” Seth said. “It’s fine.” His voice was kind of rough, like he’d maybe started crying.

Kevin tossed his phone onto the bed. He curled a hand into Seth’s hair and used the grip to tug Seth’s head back so he could see Seth’s eyes. He wasn’t crying, thank god.

“Do you feel like shit today?” Kevin asked.

Seth dropped his eyes. Kevin rolled his. “Then fucking cuddle with me and stop whining about it.” Kevin tipped Seth forward so he could sprawl more naturally across Kevin’s chest. Seth went willingly, snuggled into Kevin’s bulk with obvious pleasure.

Seth was quiet for just long enough that Kevin started to think about picking up his phone again, before he said, “It’s stupid. It’s so dumb. Nothing even happened.”

Kevin closed his eyes. “I could beat the hell out of you,” he said. “Would that help? If you had something to really cry about?”

Seth laughed. The motion vibrated Kevin’s stomach uncomfortably. “Thanks,” Seth said.

“For what?” Kevin asked. He gave in and reached down to give Seth little pets that made him rub against Kevin with obvious delight. “Offering to kill you?”

Seth squirmed around under Kevin’s hand. Eventually, he worked Kevin’s shirt up enough to place a kiss on his stomach. “For being here even when you don’t need to,” he said, quiet, like it was a secret between himself and Kevin’s bellybutton.

Kevin sighed. He pinched the back of Seth’s neck and shook his head with gentle force. “You really are a fucking moron,” he said. Seth made a sound almost like a purr and went quiet.

Ten minutes after he stopped moving, Kevin picked up his phone again. Idiots weren’t going to block themselves.

When Seth woke up an hour later, Kevin’s wrist was sore, but he was still stroking Seth’s hair.

 


	5. Ambrollins - Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: i spend so much time in hospital waiting rooms for you but i only complain a little bit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for discussion of Dean's abusive past, including child neglect and physical abuse.

The first time Dean went to the hospital, he was six years old. He’d been trying to make himself SpaghettiOs – something he’d done a hundred times before – and burnt his hand badly on the stove. His screams earned him a smack on the face and hours curled up in the ER waiting room. After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor spent about five minutes wrapping his hand, and when they got home his mother took every dollar of the bill she never ended up paying out of his backside.

The second time Dean went to the hospital, he was eleven. He’d gotten shirty with one of his mother’s boyfriends – Johns, dealers, Dean had stopped keeping track – and ended up getting thrown into a wall. It was nothing that hadn’t happened before, but Dean must have landed wrong or something because his collarbone broke. When he couldn’t get out of the bed the next morning, he shouted until his mother dragged herself into his room. She rode the bus with him to the hospital, but didn’t go in. He waited by himself, lied on the paperwork himself, had the bone set by himself. That boyfriend stayed around for years, but Dean mostly stayed out of his way.

The first time that Dean didn’t go to the hospital when he should have, he was seventeen years old. A friend of his threw him into a tangle of barbed wire and it caught oddly. The gash it opened was ugly and bled freely, but there was a guy with a needle and thread and a lighter and he fixed it up good as new. It left a scar, but Dean didn’t have to wait, trapped in a hard chair, surrounded by human misery, feeling the judging eyes all around him while pain battered his body. He paid the guy in beer and decided that he would never set foot in a hospital again.

On Dean’s first anniversary of dating Seth, he sits in a hospital waiting room, foot jiggling and fingers tapping. It’s not the ER, so it’s slightly less horrible, but it still feels like breaking a vow to be there. He’s got an iPhone and an iPad but none of it helps – it still feels like the walls are closing in on him, like he’s some fucking punk kid without the sense to know that places like this aren’t for people like him. It sucks, and he doesn’t want to be here. 

Dean’s head jerks up when the big double doors swing open and Seth limps in. He’s gotten a lot better at using the prosthetic – that’s what these appointments are for, after all – but his gait is still awkward. The doctors say he would have more control if they could have saved his knee, like that matters now. Seth looks fucking furious, the way he always does after these sessions, so Dean shoves away his fluttering discomfort and stands up to pull Seth into a hug.

“How’d it go?” Dean asks.

“Fucking awful piece of shit,” Seth says. “Won’t raise my pain meds because it’s psychosomatic or whatever. Like I don’t know how much pain my fucking leg is in.” Seth tucks his face into Dean’s neck and let’s Dean take most of his weight.

Dean smiles despite the memories that cling too close whenever he comes here, the prickling feeling of not belonging and being unwanted that is never too far away. “You think _you’re_ in pain?” he says. “I played about a hundred hands of solitaire while you were in there, that’s fucking suffering.”

Seth laughs, and if he sounds close to tears, neither of them mentions it. “Well, I’m sorry that my rehab inconvenienced _you_ ,” Seth says, voice thick with sarcasm.

Dean brushes the hair out of Seth’s eyes, wanting to see the sparkle they still held, despite everything. “Nah,” Dean says. “It’s not so bad when it’s for you.”


	6. Triple H/Seth - Never Shuts Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pompt: you’ve told me this story 6 times already but i’m not gonna stop you because you’re really cute & i like hearing you talk

“…So then, of course, the cops come in, and _not only_ has Dean not put his shirt back on, but now he’s taking off his pants too…” Seth was rambling, again. Hunter used to be annoyed by it until he realized that talking was just Seth’s default state and there were only so many possible combinations of words in the English language. Seth had also done six sets of squats and completely reorganized Hunter’s filing cabinets already today, so whatever was currently eating away at him, it was clearly taking all of his coping mechanisms to keep it at bay.

“…which, of course, is when Roman finally decides to wake up, and he’s got no clue what’s going on, he just sees this guy yelling at Dean so he spears the crap out of the cop, at this point I’m positive we’re all going to die…”

Hunter had heard this story at least six times. It was one of the wilder ones but they were all variations on a theme, the stories that Seth went back to.

“…don’t know how I got them to buy it, but I guess you hear weirder things, living in Vegas…”

Even if Hunter didn’t have this story basically memorized, he probably could have followed along just from Seth’s face. When Seth flushed with pride, Hunter’s mind supplied the end of the story along with Seth: “…ended up okay. I don’t know what they would have done without me!”

Maybe Hunter was getting soft in his old age, but he couldn’t help the feeling of affection that curled up in his chest. “They were lucky to have you,” he said, “but I’m luckier to have you now.”

Seth beamed and finally stopped pacing the room with nervous energy to flop down at Hunter side and lay his head on Hunter’s shoulder.

“Did I ever tell you about the time we bailed Dean out of that jail in Laredo?” Seth asked.

He had, and it wasn’t even one of the more interesting stories. “Go ahead,” Hunter said. Maybe Seth wasn’t the protégé he thought he’d be getting, but seeing his eyes light up and his hands flail when he talked, Hunter thought he wouldn’t trade him for all the third generation supermen in the world.


	7. Kevin/Seth - Eat, Owens, Eat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: hey i love you also have you eaten yet? do you need me to make you food? shit wait have i eaten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for disordered eating

Most of the time, Kevin didn’t give a shit about his weight. He had a lifetime’s worth of first-hand knowledge that it didn’t fucking matter, not for wrestling or supporting his family or anything real. Even when the WWE held it out as a prerequisite for his contract, that he step up his conditioning and look more like a WWE Superstar, it just irritated him. He gave in, because it would make his son happy to see him wrestle John Cena, but that was just playing the game. Kevin didn’t spare a thought for how he looked or what the number on the scale said. 

Most of the time.

Kevin was on his twelfth glass of lemon water when his phone started vibrating. He was already in a bad mood, because at this rate he was going to be pissing for the rest of the day and it didn’t say anything good about his self-control that he kept having to do this shit to keep his mind off food. When he saw that the texts were from Seth, he rolled his eyes, even though there was no one there to see him. With the mood Kevin was in right now, the last thing he needed was his high-octane statuesque model of a boyfriend hanging around.

 **Have you eaten yet today?** the text said. Kevin twitched, even though there was no way that Seth _knew_. Kevin didn’t exactly keep him around for his observational skills.

The texts kept coming. **Dean said you were being more snappish than usual earlier. You know you get cranky if you don’t eat enough.** Kevin ground his teeth. He hated it when Seth tried to treat him like a child. Treating people like children was _Kevin’s_ job, goddammit.

 **I’m gonna swing by on my way to the box.** Seth wrote. **I can pick something up for you if you want. There’s a really good pizza place around here. They do the sweet tomato sauce you like and they have heroes and pasta and crap.**

The thought of food turned Kevin’s stomach at the moment, but he knew that Seth would show up with something no matter what he said. Seth had probably already gotten the food. The boy only had two speeds: CrossFit and Off, and if he was on his way to a box, he clearly wasn’t in Off. Why he hadn’t just brought Kevin some of what he’d had for lunch was a mystery.

Or was it? Kevin tapped out, **What have you eaten so far today?** There was a long, long pause before Seth wrote back, **I guess it’s a good thing I got so much food, huh?**

Kevin laughed out loud, because clearly this idiot was turning him soft. He felt some of the tension leak out of his shoulders. Maybe it wasn’t so awful to have Seth see him struggle to force down food when he knew that Seth had forgotten to eat again, too hyperfocused on planning or working out or rearranging his terrible music collection, whatever it had been today.

Kevin got up to dump out the rest of his lemon water. Once Seth got here, he was going to be busy making fun of him to bother with that shit, anyway.


	8. Ambrolleigns - Cane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: for your birthday i got you this cool cane, look it’s got flames & shit on it

For Seth’s birthday – the one a month after the knee surgery he doesn’t really have, the one where he wakes up from the anesthesia to the grave-faced surgeon who tells him that there was nothing left there to fix – Dean and Roman present him with long box after long box. Some have the sloppy corners and too-much tape approach that Roman favors, with numerous small tears that have been taped up as carefully as possible, and some show the marks of Dean’s handiwork, all tight creases and the least amount of tape possible, wasted on the most hideous wrapping paper known to man. As far as Seth can tell, they all contain canes.

Seth already had a couple canes that were serviceable enough, made with fine lacquered wood or (his favorite) intimidating metal. The first one he opens today has flames painted on it and they go downhill from there.

There’s a replica of Lucius Malfoy’s cane from the movies, sporting a great, stupid looking snake head. There’s one with the Paper Street Soap Co. logo on it, which must have been custom made. There’s even a Glamour Kills one, which Seth stares at blankly for a long time.

“Glamour Kills doesn’t make assistive devices,” Seth says, finally, trying to pretend his voice wasn’t in danger of cracking. He may or may not have checked, futilely, in those first days out of the hospital, struggling with the knowledge that everything that had once been an integral part of his life was out of his reach forever.

“They do now,” Roman says, as if it was nothing, as if one or both of them – Dean’s smug face says both – hadn’t contacted Seth’s favorite brand to make this happen. Tears prickle at the corner of Seth’s eyes, but all three of them pretend not to notice.

The last box is wrapped in paper covered with golden snitches, with Dean’s sharp corners and Roman’s crumpled tape. Seth can’t help the anticipation that mounts as he unwraps it. Even without seeing the looks on his boys faces, he can tell that this one is special.

After opening the box, it takes Seth a moment to figure out what he’s seeing. It isn’t shaped like a normal cane; it’s thicker on the bottom than it should be and the body of it is weirdly crooked. The bottom is strangely patterned as well, made to look like bristles or hair or something. Seth picks it up and turns it slowly in his hands, trying to figure out why the tension in the room is so high, why he can feel his boyfriends holding their breath.

Written on the side of the cane are the words _Nimbus 2000_.

It’s not the first time Seth has cried since fucking up his knee for good, but for the first time, he’s not mourning what he’s lost; he’s just so fucking grateful to have evidence that some things are still with him, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line about there being nothing left in his knee to fix is from an article on sports medicine I read in high school that I have been unable to find again.
> 
> The Paper Street Soap Co. is the fake soap company from Fight Club that uses lipo suction fat in its products.


End file.
